


Take Me Walking

by noxelementalist



Category: Roswell (TV)
Genre: Day Off, Episode Related, F/M, Gen, Shopping, Slice of Life, Walking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 09:04:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13244976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noxelementalist/pseuds/noxelementalist
Summary: Just a couple of couples strolling downtown





	Take Me Walking

**Author's Note:**

  * For [carchorus136](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=carchorus136).



> Written for Roswell Gift Exchange 2017. I hope you enjoy receiving this as much as I did making it carchorus136!
> 
> This story is set after 1x16 “Sexual Healing,” but before 1x17 “Crazy”

“Did I tell you your dad threatened me with a shotgun wedding?”

Liz stopped on the sidewalk and looked at her boyfriend. “My dad did _what_?”

Max nodded. “Right after we got back.”

Liz sighed as she thought back to that morning. Walking into the Crashdown Cafe, her hand held in Max, had turned out to be…not the greatest move ever. They had walked right into their parents, who had clearly been up waiting for them and who immediately began asking a _lot_ of questions, mostly of Max. And he’d done a great job of answering them-

 

[“We went out for a drive,” Max had said. “But the car broke down out on Highway 42, and it’s not like there’s any phone signal out there, so we just…slept in the car until this morning when we managed to flag down a guy who got it up and running again.”

“And you’re both alright?” Nancy Parker had asked.

“Mom!”

“We’re safe, Liz isn’t hurt, I- I promise,” Max had replied Liz’s mom ]

 

-but Jeff Parker had just stood there, staring at Max. At last he had said, “Come with me young man” and pulled Max with him into the Crashdown’s backroom, leaving Liz to face Max’s parents on her own. The whole thing had felt like one of the longer ten minutes of her life in the past month, especially when Diane Evans had begun to shout-

 

[“I’m just saying that they need to leave a note the next time they decide to drive out on a school night!” Diane Evans had said, making Liz wince. “If they can’t even be that responsible they shouldn’t be going out together.”

“Diane, calm down,” his wife, Philip had said. “They’re back, and unhurt. That’s what matters.”

“Yeah, this time, but what if something had happened?”

“We used to out driving all the time, remember?”

Diane rolled her eyes. “My father tried to make you carry a walkie-talkie,” she replied, “and I’m beginning to think he was right.”

 _Well, now I know where Isabel and Max get it from,_ Liz had thought as she watched their parents talk with each other.]

 

\- but it must not have taken that long until Max and her dad had come back, Max looking a little shell-shocked (although incredibly happy to see her) while her dad had hurried Liz upstairs to sleep, pushing her up the stairs to their apartment above the Café while the sound of Diane Evans grounding her son for the week echoed up the stairwell after her.

If it wasn’t for the fact that her parents had forgotten that it’d been a third-day weekend and that Monday was a half-day at Roswell High for teacher planning, leaving her off waitress duty, Liz probably wouldn’t even have been able to find Max after school to walk with him down South Main and Clark Street, watching the tourists checked out the kitsch stores.

“Seriously,” Max was saying, running a hand along the back of his neck. “He told me if he and your mom even so much as thought I- that you- you know-”

“ _Max_ -”

“he would line me up in front of the Desert Rose Wedding Chapel and get Reverend Copeland to marry us herself.”

“You know,” Liz started, beginning to pull him down the road away from a window showing antique furniture. “I wish I could say that surprised me, but I think my mom panicking kinda freaked him out.”

“He figured Maria would be your maid of honor, and Michael our best man,” Max went on, “with reception at the Crashdown, organized by our moms and Izzy, of course.”

“Okay, that’s terrifying,” Liz said, wincing. “He’s got our _reception_ planned?”

“I wouldn’t worry,” Max said, giving Liz a soft smile, the kind Liz knew only she ever got to see. “I mean, maybe I’m crazy, but I don’t see Maria and Michael doing well with tuxes and bridesmaid gowns.”

“Oh no, definitely not,” Liz said. “Maria’s already told me what she’s going to wear. A tasteful, color-coordinating, bohemian chic dress. Probably black and pink, to match the black of the best man tux and give it a pop of color.”

“You talked about us getting married?”

“Well, getting married,” Liz said as she paused at a crosswalk, the light turning red. “It _is_ a thing that happens you know.”

“Really?”

“What, you and Michael never-?”

“No? I mean, I don’t know about Michael,” Max said slowly, “but I never- never really thought I would marry. I mean, given my…background and all. So it didn’t make much sense trying to imagine what that would be like.”

Liz tilted her head and looked at her boyfriend carefully, taking in the sight of his green-tee and blue jean clad body standing beside her, just as awkward and unsure as he’d been that night when he asked her to take off his shirt. “Max, you guys were never going to be alone,” she said to him at last. “I mean, somebody would’ve loved you enough _eventually_ to make you want to tell them.”

“I’m, ah, pretty sure there was only one person I wanted to say that.”

Liz smiled. “And I did,” she said, giving Max a brief kiss on the lips. It was short and sweet, barely even a peck, but it was gentle and lingering, their lips touching just long enough for her to taste a little bit of strawberry from the Alien Blast smoothie she’d brought with her to school to split with him still lingering on his lips. “Even without the shotgun.”

“I love you too,” Max whispered back, grabbing her hand and holding it between them. “And there won’t be a shotgun wedding, I promise you.”

“Oh good, glad to know.”

“Maybe a Vegas one,” Max continued, pulling her across the crosswalk as its light flickered green, making Liz laugh. “Eloping would probably be easier, plus we wouldn’t have to see Izzy plan something bigger than Christmas.”

“Well if it isn’t our resident jailbirds,” Liz heard a voice say. Glancing away from Max she saw that they had run into Michael and Maria outside Deluca Alien Collectables, Michael looking somewhat put upon as Maria leaned over to look at a stand labeled Natural Oil Remedies. They were both still dressed in the shirt and jeans that nearly everyone under the age of thirty wore in town, Michael’s shirt a brick-red and Maria’s a light blue.

“Heard you got back from out of town,” Michael continued as they drew closer. “Everything okay?”

“Jeff Parker threatened me with a shotgun wedding,” Max said.

“My girl isn’t getting one of those,” Maria interrupted, standing up after grabbing a vial. “She’s going to have a nice white wedding.”

“That’s the vampire one right?” Michael asked his girlfriend.

Maria glared at him. “If you’re Billy Idol maybe,” she said scornfully. “Or a vampire, but let’s face it, you like Tabasco and Snapple way too much for that.”

“You’ll be happy to know my dad graciously volunteered you to be Max’s best man,” Liz told Michael.

Michael preened. “Damn straight I’d be,” Michael said. “Nobody else knows this guy like I do, and I look _good_ in a suit.”

“You seem more like a vest person to me,” Maria said.

“See, I told you,” Max whispered to Liz, who snickered.

“A what?” Michael asked her, ignoring the pair of them. “Do I look fifty to you?”

“It’s the shoulders,” Maria said running her empty hand alongside Michael’s right shoulder. “They’re too broad. It’s either a vest or just cave in and go for the dress polo, and the only way I’m letting you go to a wedding in a polo is if we’re hightailing it from the police Bonnie and Clyde style. Liz, what do you think of this one?”

“Congrats Michael,” Max said as Maria handed the vial over to his girlfriend. “Your shoulders can’t be tamed.”

“What can I say Maximillian, I’m a wild man.”

“Max was saying eloping to Vegas could be nice,” Liz told Maria as she sniffed briefly at the vial before saying, “ugh, no.”

“Really?” Maria asked.

“He looks really good in gambler black,” Liz said. “And yeah, not unless you want to smell like the Crashdown’s Comet Chili.”

“Yeah. That’s a no,” Maria said, putting the bottle back onto the shelf. “Though since when have you seen Max dressed in gambler black? I mean, compared to the regular black he wears all the time.”

“Max was wearing gambler black under that jacket of his when they drove out to Highway 42,” Michael said.

“Really?”

“I saw him earlier that day,” Michael told his girlfriend, sliding an arm around her. “Though I heard from Isabel he came back in the spare shirt he leaves in the jeep.”

“Knew I shouldn’t have changed,” Max muttered.

“Oh, so you’ve seen him in and out of gambler black then,” Maria said to Liz. “Right on.”

“Anyway,” Liz said, hoping her face wasn’t blushing from the memory of Max’s (oh so gorgeous) shirtless body pressing gently against hers under the Roswell night sky, “As you can see, Dad’s not going to be killing him. Not that he’s _actually_ that violent of course,” Liz told Michael, pulling Maria after her into the store.

“It’s true,” Maria told her boyfriend. “Now if it was Grandma Claudia, watch out. She’d take Max out fast.”

“I believe it,” Michael said, following her, with Max following behind. “Claudia seemed like a woman in charge.”

“She approved of Max,” Liz told him. “So that’s not happening anytime soon either.”

“Um,” Max said after a bit. “Not that I don’t love looking at giant green alien keychains, but seeing as how I’m going to be staring at these for hours once I’m behind the counter at the museum, what are we looking for exactly?”

“Maria’s trying to find the perfect thing to accent my apartment,” Michael told him, moving around a bookshelf to lean against a rack of novelty backpacks. “Because apparently furniture and a fresh coat of paint isn’t enough.”

Max looked at Maria, his forehead furrowing in confusion. “…like some kind of pillow?”

Maria shook her head. “See I thought about that,” she said back to Max, looking at a shelf of mugs with the phrase “Roswell Department of Extra-Terrestrial Affairs” written on them, “but it’s not really the furniture. Like, that he’s definitely taken care of. It’s more the, like, whole general ambiance of the place, you know? It’s like the apartment says ‘I’m a loser teenage bachelor pad’ instead of ‘I’m the residence of a nice independent man with a job and a girlfriend he doesn’t deserve,’ which is what it should be saying really.”

“Apparently independence is a vibe,” Michael added to Max. “If you can believe it.”

“Liz back me up here. There’s gotta be a mood.”

“Ah,” Liz said hesitantly, looking over a shelf of miniature alien statuettes to glance between the other three, “it can be a nice touch to have something that makes people think of you when they come into your house so they remember you better?”

“Thank you!” Maria shouted.

“Maxwell, help me out here,” Michael asked, looking at the other man.

Max shook his head. “I wipe through my room with cedar once a month.”

“Really?” Maria said as Michael groaned. “That’s so…wholesome.”

“It smells like pencils,” Liz said with a sigh. “What,” she added when she saw the horrified look on Max’s face, “you know I like books. It’s like living in a library.”

“I can’t believe you made your room smell like wood,” Michael was saying.

“It was either that or watch Isabel Lysol my room with Ocean Breeze, whatever that is,” he admitted, Michael nodding with understanding. “This way I can at least breathe in my own room…and apparently make Liz feel she’s in a library.”

“I think you are vastly under-estimating the appeal of books here,” Liz told her boyfriend. “Like, big time.”

“Breathe,” Maria muttered to herself. “Breathe…wait, I got it!”

“Maria, where are- where is she going?” Michael asked Liz, who just shrugged her shoulders in reply.

“Yes!” Maria shouted, raising her hand to show a pack of bottles. “Meet you outside!”

“Wait, what is-” Michael began, only to find Liz brushing him and Max outside.

“You know you’ve got nothing to worry about,” Max told him as they stood on the street. “Maria knows this stuff, and it is her Mom’s store.”

Michael huffed. “I know, I know,” he said. “It’s just...it feels so...”

“Serious?”

“Yeah. Like, I don’t even know if I’m gonna stay there forever, you know? So why go that far?”

“Maybe because we could be here for our entire lives?”

“Maybe, but…do you ever feel like you’re just watching your life get way out of hand?”

Max nodded. “All the time.”

Michael sighed. “Well,” he said, “on the bright side, at least I didn’t have to take my girlfriend out into the middle of the desert to get it on.”

“ _Hey_!” Max started, only to be interrupted by the girls coming out, Liz holding the door open for Maria.

“Eucalyptus,” Liz told them as she followed Maria out onto the street, the door shutting behind her to the sound of a tinny bell chiming.

“A clean, refined scent for a gentleman,” Maria added.

Max glanced at Liz. “Refined?”

“Not easily noticed,” she explained, “but it can clear a room fast.”

“Stealthy but strong,” Michael said. “I like it.”

“Good, ‘cause it’s going all over your house,” Maria said, grabbing his arm. “Now come on, there’s that movie we wanted to check out at the mall.”

“We’ll see you later,” Max said, getting just waved hands in goodbye as Michael and Maria walked off.

“You don’t want to go to the movies?” Liz teased as she slid an arm around him, turning to look at her boyfriend.

“No,” Max chuckled, shifting so that he could wrap his arms around Liz more easily. “I’m thinking... dancing.”

“Dancing?”

“The Dance Club’s doing one of those public exhibition things out in the Calhoun Park,” Max explained, starting to sway. “I thought we could swing by. What?” he asked when Liz started laughing. “Is it a bad idea?”

“No, no it’s not,” she replied, beaming up at him. “Let’s just go dance.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Liz said, grabbing her boyfriend’s arm. “Let’s dance.”

And together they began to walk down the street again.

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone who’s curious, Comet Chili is a special straight off the [ Crashdown Menu](http://www.roswelloracle.com/menu.html).
> 
> All place names are canon, but the Reverend is from real life.
> 
> The inspiration for both Max and Michael’s scent, as well as theirs and Maria’s shirt colors, comes from [ the Roswell High Book series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roswell_High#Connection_Scents), where the characters are uniquely identified by a scent and an aura color when they psychically connect. (I’m not saying someone should make all us fans a tea/scented oil thing, but I’m not not saying it either.)


End file.
